mil.navy.nps.rra
Class Lobe

java.lang.Object
|
+--mil.navy.nps.rra.Lobe

public class Lobe

extends java.lang.Object

A Lobe is defined by combining multiple Beams, which in turn are made up of Rays.

Lobes are emitted in a pattern from an source. In a
properly designed active sonar, there is only one main
Lobe. This class simulates that Lobe. Lobes are characterized
by a direction that they are pointed in, and also (typically) by a
horizontal and vertical beamwidth. Within this Lobe resides
the acoustic energy used for detection of distant objects.
This class subdivides the Lobe into Beams. This approach
keeps the wave front of each individual bundle of rays from
getting significantly larger than the wavelength of the acoustic
energy. This constraint also ensures that accuracy is maintained
and so many special problems with large area bundle reflection
can be ignored. Thus, the Lobe class divides the sonar lobe into a
matrix of beams, and divides the energy in the lobe among the
beams. Each beam is then calculated individually using the Beam
class.

Future Work:

To optimize the execution time, repeated calculation of duplicate rays
needs to be eliminated.